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Do you wanna know what really grinds my gears?

Ireeb

Mega Poster
What really grinds my gears are people who think roller coasters are unsafe just because there have been some incidents like the Smiler, while not considering the countless car crashes that happen everyday.

Also I don't like too hard brake runs that slam the restraints into your body. (Looking at you, Eurosat! Whacking clueless riders since 1989...)
 

Ireeb

Mega Poster
ukthemeparkfan said:
members of the gp who think they know what they talking but really don't

Yesterday I had an argument with a girl in the YouTube comments who claimed that the first car of the Smiler stopped because the emergency-stop-brakes on the train were unexpectedly activated. THAT grinded my gears (especially since it needed 2 comments of me and one from another guy to convince her that that's ****)
 

CrashCoaster

CF Legend
Any roller coaster with a **** capacity. Anything under 1000 pph is utter ****. Looking at you Gerstlauer and Vekoma! :evil:
 

Ireeb

Mega Poster
ATI said:
Any roller coaster with a **** capacity. Anything under 1000 pph is utter ****. Looking at you Gerstlauer and Vekoma! :evil:

Well, Gerstlauer's Smiler has 1200pph, and Gerslauer offers trains twice as long as they are on the Smiler. If the park orders a ride with a (too) low capacity, it's the parks fault. They must know how many visitors they have, not the manufacturer. Karacho in Tripsdrill has less than 1000 pph, but it's enough for the visitor numbers in Tripsdrill.
 

CrashCoaster

CF Legend
Actually no, the smiler will only have a throughput of about 1000 pph because it only runs 4 trains, however gerstlauer designed it to run 5 trains, so its only 1200 pph when it runs 5 trains.
 

Ireeb

Mega Poster
You said Gerstlauer builds rides with less than 1000 pph, but the Smiler can do 1200 pph. So Gerstlauer build it with a higher capacity that necessary.
 

Ireeb

Mega Poster
I don't know enough about Vekoma to argue about it... But still, both are more targeted to smaller themeparks, so an incredibly high capacity is not needed. As I already said, if a park orders a roller coaster with a capacity that is too low, that's the parks fault. You can always tell the capacity before the coaster is built.
 

andrus

Giga Poster
ATI said:
What about Vekoma huh?
Anything Disney..?

Anyway: what really grinds my gears are theme parks that totally neglect the environment of their guests! This is especially the case of Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks where you often find huge open areas consisting of mere concrete. A park does not need to have the meticoulus planning, theming and attention of detailing that Disney does, but one would at least expect a theme park to put in a little bit of effort into it's surroundings! A day at a theme park is after all a recreational activity. Some environments of CF and SF seems almost hostile, and I got no clue to what the park planners/designers where thinking of. Or maybe CF/SF don't use professional designers at all?! :p
 

Ben

CF Legend
ATI said:
What about Vekoma huh?

They've literally built some of the highest capacity coasters in the World.

Of course their Coasters are mainly aimed at the lower end parks who don't need to push through 1500 pph who should be buying multi-train B&Ms but they can do it if they need to.
 

caffeine_demon

Strata Poster
*cough*Colorado adventure*cough*
*cough*DLP big thunder mountain*cough*
.....
not exactly low budget parks or low throughput rides!
 

Pokemaniac

Mountain monkey
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
caffeine_demon said:
*cough*Colorado adventure*cough*
*cough*DLP big thunder mountain*cough*
.....
not exactly low budget parks or low throughput rides!

And of course, the king of both budget and throughput: Expedition Everest. 36 riders per train, it runs five trains if I'm not mistaken, and has separate on- and off-loading stations so it can run those operations in parallel. Wikipedia states its capacity to be 2050 pph. And of course, the cost: EE cost a whooping 100 million dollars to build, making it the most expensive coaster built to date if themeing is included.

Vekoma - poor throughput, and only for budget parks!
 

AshleyScared

Roller Poster
I hate the mentality of some enthusiasts that every couple of years a park HAS to add a new coaster. Kings Dominion is currently the BIGGEST example of this with the recent Planet Snoopy controversy. They haven't gotten a new coaster since I305, so what?!?!? You have 13 coasters that every person from kids to families to Arrow Custom Looper fans to thrillseekers can enjoy, do you REALLY need more? Same with parks like Michigan's Adventure and Six Flags St. Louis; they have lineups that appeal to the people who give them the most cash: the general public. Just because you're an enthusiast doesn't mean they have to please YOU every few years. God I really hate that.

Although Kings Dominion's way of HYPING the Snoopy expansion was also stupid. Hyping up the expansion with Snoopy looking at a closed Hurler was NOT a good idea as people are automatically going to assume that its going to be a Hurler-related announcement, leading to people being pissed off when the announcement has nothing to do with Hurler at all.
 

peep

CF Legend
^I thought the weirdest thing about that whole debacle was that the park only let enthusiast bloggers into the live unveiling. It made no sense to advertise something primarily for their general family market towards a group that isn't interested in that type of investment. Obviously the reaction was ridiculous but the park were totally to blame for creating a lot of mis-leading hype.

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk
 

RyanB19

Roller Poster
When a chain adds 3 of the same coaster, at 3 parks, in the same year with the same theme. I'm looking at you Six Flags.. is one unique ride much to ask for? Found what's missing at least. :idea:
 

caffeine_demon

Strata Poster
just thought of some more:

Websites which are "high on style" but "low on information" (eg phantasialand doesn't seem to have showtiimes or fastpass info on, and the hotels page says that you can pay 15 euros a night extra for a room in the "kaiser" category, but doesn't tell you what that gets you!

downloadable park maps which might as well be invisible when printed on A4 paper

Coasters with lifthills at the end.
 

Lofty

CF Legend
Pokemaniac said:
EE cost a whooping 100 million dollars to build, making it the most expensive coaster built to date if themeing is included.
Yeah, that figure is for the project as a whole as far as I'm aware, so that also includes the ridiculous Yeti animatronic and it's own support structure, too.
 
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